But now I mourn that e'er I knew

A girl so fair and so deceiving.
Fare thee well.

Few have ever loved like me,

Yes, I have loved thee too sincerely And few have e'er deceived like thee,Alas! deceived me too severely.

Fare thee well!-yet think awhile

On one whose bosom bleeds to doubt Who now would rather trust that smile

And die with thee than live without

Fare thee well! I'll think of thee,

Thou leav'st me many a bitter token For see, distracting woman, see, My peace is gone, my heart is broke Fare thee well!

MORALITY.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE.

ADDRESSED TO

J. AT-NS-N, ESQ. M. R. I. A. THOUGH long at school and college dosi O'er books of verse and books of prosin And copying from their moral pages Fine recipes for making sages; Though long with those divines at scho Who think to make us good by rule; Who, in methodic forms advancing, Teaching morality like dancing, Tell us, for Heaven or money's sake, What steps we are through life to take Though thus, my friend, so long emplo With so much midnight oil destroy'd, I must confess, my searches past, I've only learn'd to doubt at last. I find the doctors and the sages Have differ'd in all climes and ages, And two in fifty scarce agree On what is pure morality.

"Tis like the rainbow's shifting zone,

And every vision makes its own.

The doctors of the Porch advise, As modes of being great and wise, That we should cease to own or know The luxuries that from feeling flow:"Reason alone must claim direction, "And Apathy's the soul's perfection.

But thus it is, all sects we see Have watchwords of morality: Some cry out Venus, others Jove; Here 'tis Religion, there' 'tis Love. But while they thus so widely wander, While mystics dream, and doctors ponder; And some, in dialectics firm, Seek virtue in a middle term; While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance, To chain morality with science; The plain good man, whose actions teach More virtue than a sect can preach, Pursues his course, unsagely bless'd, His tutor whisp'ring in his breast; Nor could he act a purer part, Though he had Tully all by heart. And when he drops the tear on wo, He little knows or cares to know

1 Aristippus.

That Epictetus blamed that tear,
By Heaven approved, to virtue dear!

Oh! when I've seen the morning beam Floating within the dimpled stream; While Nature, wak'ning from the night, Has just put on her robes of light, Have I, with cold optician's gaze, Explored the doctrine of those rays? No, pedants, I have left to you Nicely to sep'rate hue from hue. Go, give that moment up to art, When Heaven and nature claim the heart; And, dull to all their best attraction, Go-measure angles of refraction. While I, in feeling's sweet romance, Look on each daybeam as a glance From the great eye of Him above, Wak'ning his world with looks of love!

THE

TELL-TALE LYRE.

I've heard, there was in ancient days
A Lyre of most melodious spell;
"Twas heav'n to hear its fairy lays,
If half be true that legends tell.

"Twas play'd on by the gentlest sighs, And to their breath it breathed again In such entrancing melodies

As ears had never drunk til then!

Not harmony's serenest touch

So stilly could the notes prolong; They were not heavenly song so much As they were dreams of heavenly song!

If sad the heart, whose murm'ring air
Along the chords in languor stole,
The numbers it awaken'd there
Were eloquence from pity's soul.

Or if the sigh, serene and light,

Was but the breath of fancied woes, The string, that felt its airy flight,

Soon whisper'd it to kind repose.

And when young lovers talk'd alone,
If, 'mid their bliss that Lyre was near,

It made their accents all its own,

And sent forth notes that Heaven might hear.